PRISONERS GIVEN KEYS TO HEAVEN
Convicts embrace Christianity and decide to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
When Nick Drummond was on remand in Lewes prison after police caught him with a cache of hard drugs, he was told he would serve a maximum of two years. But his lawyer didn't bargain on prison chaplain David Powe and extraordinary religious revival sweeping the jail.
Mr Powe visited Drummond in his pornography-festooned cell and asked: "Do you want to know God?" Their conversation convinced the tattooed, skin-headed East Ender that he should be 'born again'.
Drummond went before the judge and told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- which cost him dear. He had not only been in possession of the drugs, but the £9,000 found in his flat had come from drug-running. Instead of two years' imprisonment, he got four.
His dramatic conversion is not unusual. Hundreds of inmates at Lewes have found God behind bars. Mr Powe says 314 have declared themselves Christians in the past year.
The phenomenon has also been seen at Exeter prison, where the chaplain, the Rev Bill Birdwood, claims up to 200 inmates have converted during the same period. During a recent evangelistic mission at Lindholm prison, near Doncaster, a third of the 600 prisoners attended church meetings, compared with the 20 who usually come to Sunday services.
Stephen Ashworth, a governor at Lewes, says: "I'm absolutely flabbergasted. It has quietened prison life down. You notice the difference in people."
Nick Drummond, for example, has been a "major headache, frequently in the 'segregation unit'." Now he's a "different person".
Drummond, who now wears a wooden cross around his neck, says: "When I became a Christian my head was spinning. I felt my blood changing and I cried my eyes out." Jesus, he says, has cured his heroin addiction.
In his chaplaincy office Mr Powe displays sheaves of letters from grateful prisoners, some of whom have apologised to the victims of their crimes. "Dear Judge," reads one letter. "Having become a born-again Christian I've decided to change my plea to that of guilty although I did not go into the property. I only forced the windows open and leaned inside to see if anybody was there .. obviously my actions caused the place to be burgled."
From "The Observer", Sunday July 16, 1995. Copyright acknowledged.
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